<B> Inside Track</B>
<B>Will They Or Won't They?</B>
Those long-rumored merger talks between Amadeus and Worldspan reportedly could conclude in coming weeks. At press time, there was no contract between the two.
<a name="story2"><B>Choice CEO Resigns</B>
Choice Hotels International's president and CEO William Floyd, 53, resigned Wednesday to "pursue other interests." Stewart Bainum Jr., chairman of the board of directors and one of the company's largest shareholders, will act as interim CEO during the search for a replacement.
<a name="story3"><B>E-Commerce To Go Live</B>
American Airlines and Lufthansa German Airlines in the next three months will begin piloting Internet transactions charged to their respective Air Travel Card programs, now that the e-commerce program passed a security test. Working with partner VeriFone Inc. and Electronic Data Systems, Air Travel Card simulated a consumer buying airline tickets charged to an ATC charge card over the Internet using the SET protocol. Executives plan to run a few more tests, but are confident enough to have the airlines accept real transactions.
<a name="story4"><B>Genesis To Make Bid For Funding </B>
The United States Travel Agent Registry is set to launch Genesis Travel Distribution System Inc., its alternative GDS, at a supplier meeting scheduled for June 30 in Houston. Genesis will be jointly owned by USTAR, the Canadian Standard Travel Agent Registry, the European Standard Travel Agent Registry and a 5 percent air carrier equity partner the group still is seeking.
At the meeting, suppliers will be given participation agreements to sign within 30 days. "Aug. 1 is the deadline to come to the table with the financing for Genesis," said USTAR president and CEO Bruce Bishins. If the industry cannot come up with the $50 million on the project's price tag by the deadline, "we will remove Genesis' not-for-profit status and become for-profit," Bishins said. "We will seek venture capital."
<a name="story5"><B>Woodside Sets Multinational Agenda</B>
Woodside Travel Trust partners are in the process of signing a new networking agreement for handling multinational and global accounts. According to senior vice president Allan Slan, one fourth of Woodside's partners helped to create the document, which "formalizes our approach to going after business collectively." Slan said the agreement "sets service standards, operational standards, pricing and data information issues up front." WTT has given the document to all partners for signature and, Slan said, "I would be surprised if it is not close to unanimous."
<a name="story6"><B>Navigant Goes Public</B>
Navigant International, the U.S. Office Products travel spinoff, completed its initial public offering and is trading at $9 a share.
Brad Cohen, senior analyst at the New York-based Sands Brothers & Company Ltd., said Navigant creates "a unique situation because they spun themselves off from their core parent and at the same time they also tried to raise money to pay down debt and have money for acquisitions. We've never seen anything like this before."
Cohen said that compared with its publicly traded peers, Navigant's stock is undervalued. If the stock doesn't trade to a fair multiple value, he added, someone like American Express "would probably look very favorably at this company as a potential takeover candidate. They have the potential to earn, in the next two to three years, $350 million in net revenues, and to be the third or fourth largest player in the industry." Cohen added, however, that Navigant must prove itself in the first quarter and demonstrate its ability to operate as a public company.